Grocery shopping has been very different in 2020. Besides mask and social distancing requirements,
grocery stores have seen shortages of a whole lot of shelf staples. Not just toilet paper,
but food, too. It looks like we may see these shortages of these food items continuing into
2021.
If you assume beer shortages are because sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic, you're
only half right. Alcohol sales in the United States have indeed gone up significantly in
2020. But breweries, in large part, have continued to make beer. So what's the problem? It's
aluminum cans.
"He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!"
Since bars and restaurants have been closed for a significant part of the year, most of
the beer that would have been put in kegs and delivered to the business is instead being
put in bottles and cans to be sold at retail. This has created a demand for aluminum cans
that has outpaced the supply. So larger beer manufacturers, such as Molson Coors and Brooklyn
Brewery, have been forced to cut back on their offerings and stick to selling only their
most popular beers.
Small, craft breweries are hurting even more. With no one visiting their tasting rooms,
they have been selling more beer in cans for people to drink at home. But finding those
cans has been a problem. Brett Trump, CFO of Free Will Brewing Company in Pennsylvania,
told Newsweek,
"The Bud Houses, Miller Coors, have just bought them all. We can't compete with them, obviously."
Rob Lightner, owner of East Brother Beer in California, added,
"We've experienced multiple instances of delays, shortages, changes in agreed-upon terms. It's
a nightmare."
Soda companies are facing the same aluminum can problem as beer brewers. But there's another
component to the soda slingers' troubles: a lack of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is the gas that gives soda its fizz. It's a by-product of the production
of ethanol, which is used in gasoline. So when people across the country abruptly stopped
driving as much, fuel demands plummeted and ethanol plants cut production.
According to the Daily Mail, 34 out of the 45 U.S. ethanol plants that sell carbon dioxide
had either cut production or idled completely during the coronavirus lockdown in the spring
of 2020. As of the fall, carbon dioxide supply was still tight. One expert said he believes
"Shortages will continue for the rest of the year, driven by ethanol issues. Until COVID-19
is under control, it is hard to see things returning to normal, considering our current
[carbon dioxide] supply portfolio domestically."
With such a tight supply, soda manufacturers will likely have to stick to their tried and
true products. So while you can still buy a Pepsi, you'll have a hard time finding Pepsi
Zero Sugar Wild Cherry.
Shelf-stable items were the items of choice when people began hoarding food to get them
through isolation. Naturally, canned soup was popular, and soup makers are still trying
to ramp up production.
According to MarketScreener, General Mills, the maker of Progresso Soup, still hadn't
caught up as of September, even after increasing its production capacity and hiring new outsourcing
partners. Campbell's Soup Company's inventory was likewise only about halfway recovered.
Soup makers are coming up against another problem: the weather. In the colder months,
more and more people will be shopping for soup, creating an even more limited inventory.
Campbell's CEO Mark Clouse said his team is working hard to fully catch up to the demand
for soup by January, so it's clear this problem will last into 2021. The real question is,
how far into the year. Until then, you'll find some soup on the shelf, but it may not
be the flavor you're looking for.
Stocks of all kinds of foods were depleted from the onslaught of grocery sales when the
pandemic hit, but canned corn was hit particularly hard. The trouble with canned corn is the
variety of corn typically used for it: sweet corn. Sweet corn is harvested just once per
year, in the summer. And in the spring of 2020, canned corn sales went up 47.6 percent.
"Mmm, corn! Haven't had that in a while!"
"Yeah! Delicious corn!"
At that point, big food manufacturers urged farmers to grow more corn, but the corn growers
had already made their harvesting plans. There's also the issue of getting the canned goods
to the store. Many trucking companies have cut back on their fleets, meaning there are
fewer trucks to haul food.
In short: There won't be an increase in production coming any time soon. So if the pandemic lags
on, and consumers continue to stockpile nonperishable food, canned corn may be a difficult item
to find for the foreseeable future.
In quarantine, everyone and their grandma seemingly decided to pass the time baking.
This resulted in a rush of sales of baking ingredients, particularly yeast, which saw
a 258.5 percent sales increase. While other ingredients were able to bounce back fairly
quickly, yeast took longer, because it's actually alive. It needs time for its cells to continue
to double.
And the worst may be yet to come. Peak demand for yeast typically comes at the end of the
year, during the holiday season. People who weren't baking banana bread in the spring
may be baking yeasted fruitcakes in the winter. A December run on baking products anywhere
close to what we saw in spring 2020 could mean the next shortage may last well into
2021.
Another baking staple, flour, suffered shortages throughout 2020. The situation was the result
of "unprecedented demand," said Christopher Clark, vice president of communications and
administration for the North American Millers' Association.
With another surge of coronavirus cases, consumers are returning to their early pandemic shopping
behaviors. They're stocking up, particularly on items they fear will be gone soon. So even
if flour is back on the shelves now, it may not be soon. Chris Mentzer, the director of
operations for Rastelli Market Fresh in New Jersey, told Today,
"To compound the shortages, the customers that weren't buying before are now buying
extra, so the shortages are starting to impact stock levels. Yeast and flour continue to
be in high demand since they were virtually impossible to get in March and April."
The expected flour demand could continue as the calendar flips to 2021.
With not much else to do in 2020, people who had never planted so much as a single flower
found themselves in the soil, planting seeds in hopes of a fruit and vegetable bounty.
It helped pass the time and provided food during a time of great food insecurity. But
gardening got so popular that it resulted in a seed shortage, which is expected to continue
in 2021.
If you rely on your garden to put food on your plate, there are several seed-saving
tips you should follow going into the new year. The first is to save the seeds from
this year's crop. Once you have the seeds from the produce, store them in a cool, dark
place, or in the freezer where they can last for years.
You can also swap seeds with other growers at events and online.
The meat industry suffered a major setback in the spring and summer, when some of the
largest meat processing plants reported coronavirus outbreaks. This forced them to temporarily
shut down or scale back production significantly. In April, John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods,
the country's largest meat processor, took out a newspaper ad that read in part,
"There will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able
to reopen our facilities that are currently closed."
Plants reopened, but in a limited capacity. Normally, plant employees work in close quarters,
even shoulder to shoulder. New protocols like glass dividers and social distancing limit
the number of people that can work at one time, so facilities can't process meat as
quickly as they could before.
And with a surge in coronavirus cases in 2020's last quarter, the meat industry is again suffering.
In November, a meat plant in New Mexico was ordered to shut down for two weeks.
Spam rode a high over the summer. As more and more people continued to cook at home,
sales of the canned meat soared. According to Bloomberg, sales jumped more than 70 percent
in the 15-week period ending in June.
"Spam and Reese's. All right."
"I love Spam and Reese's. Can I have it?"
“Um, I guess?”
But there's a flip side to every coin. This surge in demand coincided with coronavirus
outbreaks that afflicted many of the major meat processing plants in the United States,
most of which had to close entirely or cut back on operations.
Months later, Hormel, Spam's parent company, announced it would have a difficult time meeting
this high demand in the near future. Hormel cited supply chain, staffing, and production
problems as the primary culprits. The company has been forced to reduce the number of employees
working at one time, which in turn, reduces the amount of Spam that can be made. As long
as COVID-19 is still a factor, production will continue to be limited.
Whether cookies or chips, sweet or salty, certain varieties of well-known snack brands
won't be on the shelves as 2021 rolls in. In the pandemic pinch, snack companies have
chosen to focus their efforts on their best-selling products. Mondelez International, maker of
Oreos, announced it would be producing more original Oreos rather than its various other
Oreo flavors. Pepperidge Farm did the same and limited production of its Geneva cookie.
Many potato chip flavors were likewise put on hold or downright discontinued. Among the
lost flavors are Lay's Lightly Salted Potato Chips, Tostitos Baked Scoops, and Fritos Scoops
Spicy Jalapeno. And don't hold out hope if you're looking for Lay's Classic Multi-Pack
and Tostitos Black Bean & Garlic.
Snack food manufacturers cite the need to maximize overall output due to high product
demands caused by the pandemic. So expect to see these shortages in 2021, until the
coronavirus is in our collective rear-view mirror.
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